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"Figurative speech is the language we use to spice up our writing. Besides their aesthetic value , figurative expressions and axioms cast a flavour of 'writerly professionalism' on the written piece. It does take so much practice for students to be adept at the use of figurative language and there are no shortcuts to learn that quickly. There are however some useful tips to help them in their learning process. Periodic table of the figures of speech is an example of a very good document students can draw on to consolidate and learn different ways to use figures of speech."

"e Skills Minimod Figurative Language helps students practice and master the important language skills of recognizing and understanding figurative language. "

How to Ensure that Making Leads to Learning http://t.co/jqjmk9NJlo #makered

"In some instances, research illuminates a topic and changes our existing beliefs. For example, here's a post that challenges the myth of preferred learning styles. Other times, you might hear about a study and say, "Well, of course that's true!" This might be one of those moments. Last year, Dr. Karlsson Wirebring and fellow researchers published a study that supports what many educators and parents have already suspected: students learn better when they figure things out on their own, as compared to being told what to do.  "

"So, you're wanting to learn how to code but not sure where to start? Or perhaps you just want to know what the fuss around computer science is about? Or is it that you know you need to help your students figure out programming? Here are some ways to get started."

"Foldify is an iPad app that students can use to design all kinds of 3D figures on their iPads. After designing their figures students can print their designs with directions for folding their designs into 3D paper objects. Foldify provides basic templates for objects like cars, houses, and people. Students complete the templates by coloring them in, adding their own pictures to the templates, and adding fun digital stamps to the templates."

"I've always been a fan of sharing openly.  I sometimes tell people that my life is an open book that no one wants to read.  The nature of my job and my position is one that interacts regularly with social media as both a way of learning and a means of sharing. Recently, I've been captivated by the phenomena of Meerkat and Periscope.  As I've seen throughout my many years in Ed Tech, whenever a new tool hits the market there are usually a slew of early adopters running out to grab it, figure out what it does, then figure out how we can use it for education.  I'm usually one of those first-adopters, but I've purposefully taken a more measured approach to the world of mobile live video streaming and becoming a "Digital Broadcaster"."

"Math teacher Laura Kretschmar gave students a rubric with specific goals around collaboration, communication and instructions to use various functions in the program, but not a lot else. She's intentionally giving them a lot of freedom to play with the program, create cool designs and figure out what the functions do. "I think "y" means, like, going up," says Juritzy Maldonado. "So to pull it up, I'm going to try to change the number." She punches in 200 for "y" and watches the image she's creating shift upward. Another group discovers that if they hit "repeat" multiple times, they can create a parachute-like design that they've figured out how to color in various ways. That wasn't their original plan, but they're running with it now."

"Being a student right now is difficult. There's that nagging feeling that you could always 'just Google it' and know the answer to something. It's an urge many students must fight on a day-to-day basis if they want to actually get some reliable answers. Sure, you could punch in a simple question or keyword and get millions of results. But what happens when you need to do a 'Google A Day' style level of research? An instance where you need to dive into dozens of actual books or figure out how to sort the good resources from the less-than-reliable sources? That's where figuring out some of the best Google tips comes in handy."

"Figuring out which tool is right for the job is something we all struggle with every day. Whether you're a contractor, plumber, or teacher, there's a lot of options to choose from. Teachers managing connected classrooms have it quite rough, though. There's an embarassment of riches when it comes to apps, web tools, and digital services that want to make your life easier. So how do you easily figure out which are the best education apps for connected classrooms, you ask? Great rhetorical question, Jeff!"

"I led a training last week on blended learning and asked teachers to brainstorm the biggest challenges they face in the classroom. One answer resonated with me. "Learned helplessness." On my drive home, I kept mentally returning to this phrase. Then in my own classroom last week, my students were beginning a research project that would culminate in student presentations. We've done this type of task before, yet I was bombarded with questions: "Tucker, what should we title this?" "Tucker, how big should the font be?" "Tucker, how do we add an image to the background of our slide?" I have a stock response I use in this situation, "Figure it out." That may strike some teacher as harsh, but I disagree. Our students are conditioned from a young age to ask a teacher for help the minute something doesn't go right or the moment they have a question. Where is the curiosity? Why don't they want to figure it out themselves?"

"One of the most exciting parts of my day as a resource teacher and co-teacher is to spend time with students who are in the midst of thinking through a problem and figuring something out.   One of the most effective thinking and learning environments is MIT's Scratch environment. Late last fall, I was working with students in a grade 8 class. Some of them were taking on the challenge of building a working analogue clock in Scratch. Others were figuring out multiple methods by which circles and disks could be drawn in Scratch.  "

Part of the problem, he suggested, is the time it takes educators to move from learning about a piece of technology to actually integrating and manipulating its specific uses for the classroom. "If you take the five stages from the evolution of thought and practice," he said, "starting with 'entry' and moving through 'adoption' to 'adaptation' to 'appropriation,' and finally 'innovation,' research shows it takes seven years on average to go from the top of that list to the bottom. That's a long time." Too long, according to Benno. Which is why, as educators, "we have to figure out how to close the gap."

Stykz is the first multi-platform stick figure animation program in the world (as far as we know!), and it is COMPLETELY FREE!

The first multi-platform stick figure animation program. Stykz supports exporting animations in QuickTime Movie and Animated GIF formats

"Augmented reality has existed since the 1930's but a recent advance in Smartphone technology has fueled the recent hype."

"Even though it's October it still feels very much like the beginning of the year. One of the first thoughts that many teachers have about their students is "they look so little!" It's true. Those tall confident students that left us have gone on to be "little" to next year's teacher and we have our own new crop of "little" people to educate. This becomes even more pronounced in a technology classroom. Everything takes longer, typing, starting, opening, finding, searching. Whatever it is they need time to figure it out. Patience is key. So what can we do?"

"I received an email from an agricultural education colleague in another district inquiring about potential iPad testing apps to to use which also handle scoring. I figured rather than just send her an email, I'd share the three apps I use for assessment purposes with pros and cons of each. All I mention are FREE."